


Soldier's Heart

by Miko, NocturnalRites



Series: One Step Sideways [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bodyguard, Caplicity, Crossover Pairings, Divergent Timelines, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Hate Crimes, Holocaust Reference, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jewish!Felicity, John Diggle is a Good Bro, Kidnapping, Light Dom/sub, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Toys, Sexual Fantasy, Slow Burn, Spanking, Star Spangled Smoak, Stelicity, Suspense, Team Arrow, Undercover Missions, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism, anti-Semitism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-16 17:50:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7277884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NocturnalRites/pseuds/NocturnalRites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of SHIELD, Steve Rogers has one mission: rescue his friend Bucky Barnes before HYDRA recaptures him.  His one lead is an encrypted computer file, and the friends who could help are out of reach.  With the clock ticking, Steve turns to the grandson of one of his Commandos.  Fortunately, John Diggle knows just the person for the job.</p><p>Hacking the impossible is what Felicity Smoak loves best, but she didn’t expect a simple favor to put her in HYDRA’s crosshairs. The Arrow is injured after fighting Deathstroke and she can’t abandon her team. Captain America’s protection is the only thing that can save Felicity and Starling City. What nobody can save her from is the danger of falling for the man behind the mask.</p><p>Felicity offers Steve more than the chance to help Bucky and defeat his biggest enemy.  She's also the key to a dream Steve thought he'd lost forever:  a new life and a new love. But HYDRA's mastermind has risen from his virtual grave, and this time, he won't stop until he's destroyed Steve and everyone Steve holds dear...especially Felicity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leap of Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Felicity and the First Avenger](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1311580) by [NocturnalRites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NocturnalRites/pseuds/NocturnalRites). 
  * Inspired by [It's Gonna Be A Cold Winter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6894796) by [Chichirinoda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chichirinoda/pseuds/Chichirinoda), [Miko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko). 



> Timelines:  
>  **MCU:** Post Captain America: The Winter Soldier  
>  **DCTVU:** Post S2 Arrow, post S1 Flash (we're fudging the respective timelines for Reasons)
> 
> This story is set in the same world/timeline as the series 'The Difference Between' by Miko & Chichirinoda. The stories are linked but can be read individually with no confusion. 
> 
> Although the 'Felicity and the First Avenger' series by NocturnalRites feature the same pairing and shares some common world elements with this story, it is an alternate world/timeline with different, independent storylines. 
> 
> **Note:** Soldier's Heart is one of the first known terms for what is now called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

_Video courtesy of the amazing Ella (Felicity Queen)_

Entering Verdant was like walking into a firefight. Strobes popped and flashed overhead, flares illuminating targets in the crowd and on the dance floor. The music followed up the attack, pounding the club with a mortar barrage of thudding drums and bass booms.

Steve Rogers almost wished he _were_ heading into combat. War, he could handle. Nightclubs, not so much. He could have managed someplace like the Stork Club, but this place was as far from the Stork Club as Steve himself was from the 1940s. 

At least the light was low. As scantily clad as most of the women were, not being able to see much spared him the embarrassment of trying to figure out where to look or how to react to what was on display.

Steeling himself, he pushed his way to the bar and signaled for the bartender, a young woman in a low-cut fluorescent green T-shirt with the club's name stamped in black across the front. Her dark eyes roamed over him in blatant appreciation before she sauntered over to him, ignoring a line of outstretched hands along the way. A tiny silver lip ring gleamed against her cinnamon skin as she spoke.

"Get you _anything_ , big guy?" 

Clueless though he could sometimes be when it came to women, even Steve could tell she wanted to give him more than a beer. There was a time when he’d have given just about anything to have a gorgeous dame look at him like that, with the heat of interest instead of a sneer of disdain.

Now he knew there were different kinds of interest. She was giving him what he’d come to think of as the ‘meat market’ look - sizing him up as if he were a steak and she was deciding where to take her first bite. He knew he should have gotten used to it by now, but he still never knew quite how to react. Nor did it help that attention of _any_ kind was the last thing he needed right now.

Shoving his fake glasses up his nose, he shifted back a step. "No, ma'am. That is, yes, ma'am. I need to find John Diggle. Could you please tell me where he is?"

Frowning, she gave him another once-over, this time as if she were engaged in a mental game of place-the-face. Steve tugged his baseball cap farther down over his face, hoping his apprehension didn't show. 

"Yeah. Back in the office, last I saw him. To your left and up the stairs." Without taking her eyes from him, she waved towards a glassed-in enclosure above the dance floor. The rickety steel staircase laddering up the wall to it reminded Steve of the fire escapes on the Brooklyn tenements where he'd once lived. Hopefully, it was sturdier. "Why don't you stick around here, though? I could use some company." 

Steve didn't bother pointing out she had company three persons deep around the bar, most of whom were frantically trying to get her attention. "Thanks, but I need to find him." 

Ignoring her pout, he backed away as quickly as he dared. Out of her sight, he shoved his hands in his pockets, hunched over to help disguise his height and tried to blend into the crowd. The precautions didn't ease his mind. His skin crawled with the sense of being watched, as if each glance was a scarlet pinprick of a laser sight targeting him. He hadn't been this twitchy -- or in such a public, crowded place -- since he'd been in the mall with Natasha.

Out of habit, he flexed his shoulders, resettling the shield concealed beneath his jacket. The familiar weight reassured him. Paranoia, that's all it was. He knew he'd covered his tracks coming here and had been as careful as he knew how to be. 

But as Natasha was so fond of saying, it wasn't paranoia if they really _were_ out to get you.

At the top of the staircase a door stood ajar, showing part of a battleship-sized black metal desk in the room behind it. Though he didn't see anyone inside, Steve knocked once and waited a moment. No response. 

He hated to barge in without permission, but the longer he stood outside, the more attention he would draw. After a second's hesitation, he stepped inside, closing the door as much as he dared. To his relief, the volume of the music dropped to a bearable level. Still almost a sonic weapon, but at least he could hear himself think. 

Out of habit, he scanned the room, assessing the surroundings. No exits except the one behind him. Picture windows of one-way bulletproof glass placed to provide as broad a view as possible of the club floor. He'd bet money the walls were reinforced concrete, too. Suspicion flickered in the back of his mind. What kind of bar invested in that level of protection and why? 

Come to think of it, the whole setup reminded him of something a sniper or archer would want for his perch. How many times had he watched Bucky or Clint go for the high ground when they were setting up an ambush?

Steve caught himself and shook his head. He really _was_ getting paranoid. Despite the upscale clientele, the place was in a rough part of town. A club owner would have good reason to want to keep an eye on everything and be protected while he did it. 

He snapped alert as he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. A blonde in a bright blue dress crawled backward from under the desk, pulling a spaghetti tangle of colored wires after her. Still on all fours, she started working out the knots and separating the wires while humming a tune under her breath that had nothing to do with the music coming from the dance floor. If she was aware of his presence, she gave no sign. 

The back of Steve's neck grew hot under the collar of his jacket as he tried not to stare. That was a rear view Betty Grable would’ve been proud to claim and her dress hugged every curve. With an effort, he focused on a wall sculpture of gear wheels hanging nearby, then pointedly cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

She jerked upright, dropping the wires and almost smacking her head on the edge of the desk. The wires recoiled like angry snakes, twisting back up on themselves. Heaving an irritated sigh, she turned around to glare at him. 

"Roy, for the last time, will you stop sneaking up on…" She trailed off, blue eyes widening in chagrin behind her square glasses. Hastily, she removed a pair of earbuds. "You're. Not Roy."

"Not last I checked," he agreed, biting down on a smile.

"Great. How long have you been there?" Pinching the bridge of her nose, she shook her head. "Wait. Don't answer that." 

Hastily, she got to her feet, smoothing down her skirt in a belated attempt at modesty. Steve reflexively tracked the path of her hands. Although her dress was more demure than the outfits women were wearing down on the dance floor, her skirt was still short enough to give a fellow an eyeful, and the high heels she wore with it made her legs go on for miles. Yeah, that wasn't distracting _at all_. Quickly, he jerked his gaze back up to her face.

"Sorry about that. Dig's always on me about situational awareness. I _am_ usually in aware mode when I'm wearing headphones, I promise. That stuff downstairs made my brain bleed, so I turned my music up to block it out. Otherwise, I would have noticed when you came in. You’re kind of hard to overlook." Grimacing, she caught herself, then kept going, the words rattling out like machine gun fire. "Not that I would try to be rude and ignore you. You’re not the usual Verdant type, is all I --" 

Steve wondered if he should interrupt her or let her ramble to a stop. Before he could decide, she sliced her hand through the air, cutting herself off, then flashed him an embarrassed half-smile. "You know. Just. Forget situational awareness. I'd like to be aware of what's going to come out of my mouth sometimes. Can we sort of forget all this happened and start over?"

"Forget what?" His own smile slipped free at last. 

"Thank you." She stuck out her hand. "Hi. I'm Felicity Smoak. How can I help you?"

"Steve." Automatically, Steve schooled his grasp to keep from squeezing too hard. Small though her hand was, Felicity had a surprisingly firm, no-nonsense grip. "I'm trying to find John Diggle. The lady at the bar said he was up here. Do you know where he might be?"

"Dig? Sure. He's working on the security cameras downstairs. I don't know exactly where, what with the crowd and all. I can text him for you, though." She picked up her phone from the desk. "So that's all I should tell him, Steve's looking for him? Does he know who you are?"

She hadn't recognized him. Steve relaxed a fraction. Maybe he could keep it that way. "Not personally. I, ah, was a friend of his grandfather, Gabe. When I heard some of Gabe's family was in the area, I thought I'd drop by."

She eyed him skeptically, the words _'yeah, right'_ hanging unspoken between them, and he knew he’d blown it.

"Dig said his grandfather went missing in action in the mid-1980's. No offense, but you look awfully young to have known him." Crossing her arms, she tipped her head to the side. "So who are you, really?"

Oh, hell. _This_ was why he needed to leave the undercover work to people like Natasha. Nothing for it now. "Captain Steve Rogers. Gabe Jones served in my unit during the war."

Felicity scanned his face as if mentally subtracting the hat and glasses, then raised her eyebrows as recognition dawned. " _Oh._ As in. Captain America. Steve Rogers." She nodded, apparently unruffled by the news. "Oh...kay. I'll text him now." 

"Thank you." 

"Thank you for telling me who you were, Ste -- I mean, Captain Rogers. I wasn't trying to be nosy, but I didn't want John to get blindsided, either. Most visitors we've had recently haven't been friendly." Her fingers flew over her phone, almost too fast for him to follow. Dimples deepened around a small smile of tacit understanding, like a co-conspirator sharing a secret. "I'm guessing the hat and glasses are for identity concealment, then, not a fashion statement. Don't worry. I'm good at keeping secrets. I won't tell anyone else you're here if you're trying to stay incognito."

"I'd appreciate that, ma'am. I've got a lot of enemies right now and not a lot of allies. I don't want to draw too much attention or put you in any danger.” Despite his words, he pulled the glasses off. They were awkward and broke up his field of view, so if he didn’t need them, he’d rather not deal with the hassle. “But please, call me Steve. I never mind having a beautiful dame call me by my name."

He winced a moment later as his mind caught up with his mouth. Great. That hadn't come out at all the way he'd intended. "Woman, not dame. And it's not like being beautiful is a requirement for using my name. You are, I mean, but that's not…" He cleared his throat. "Steve's fine."

Damn it, the stumbling had to be contagious. He hadn't made a verbal blunder _that_ bad in months. When would he ever learn? He'd even had nearly the identical stumbling conversation once with Peggy. At least he hadn't said anything patronizing this time. 

Felicity reached up to adjust her own glasses, a pretty hint of pink tinting her cheeks. "All right then. _Steve_." She tried out his name in a horrible attempt at a Brooklyn accent, drawing another smile from him. "Don't worry. We're used to danger."

"Not this kind, ma'am." Talk about the understatement of the century. Nobody was used to handling the Winter Soldier.

"You might be surprised." She nudged the tangled heap of wires with the toe of her shoe, favoring them with the same reproving look his mom used to give him when he’d done something naughty. 

"Did you lose something behind the desk? I could see if I can find it for you." Rattled as he already was, the last thing he needed was for her to bend over like that again. 

"Oh, no, thanks. I'm removing the old ethernet cables. The super soldiers trashed Verdant during the siege a couple of months ago, and…”

The words jolted him. "I’m sorry, did you say _super soldiers_?”

That wasn’t a term he’d been expecting to hear. Steve knew there had been some sort of mess going on in Starling around the same time he’d discovered HYDRA within SHIELD, but he’d been a bit too out of it at the time to follow the details. Was it even possible…? 

"Yes. Some psycho named Slade Wilson, although the media's been running with 'Deathstroke'. I guess 'Killstab' was taken." She rolled her eyes. "He broke a bunch of guys out of prison, dosed them with the same cray-cray super soldier Kool-Aid he'd been given, and went all Revenge of the Sith on the city."

Steve actually understood the Star Wars reference in that sentence, even if the rest seemed like a slang code. There was only one part that was important, anyway. It was a long shot, but he was down to grasping at straws when it came to finding leads.

“Were there any reports of one with a metal arm? Bright silver with a red star on the shoulder?” 

She shot him a curious look. “Not as far as I know. They were all masked, but I think somebody with a Darth Vader arm would have stuck out. Why?”

Damn it. Well, he hadn't expected it to be _that_ easy. Sighing, Steve pulled his cap off and ran his hand through his hair. “You got a couple of hours? It’s a long story. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, sorry.”

It was evident he’d piqued her curiosity, but she didn’t pry. "Nothing much to tell. The bar hasn't had free wireless since the attack, and some of the patrons have been griping about it. My friend's in the hospital, and I'm at loose ends tonight, so I offered to fix it."

This time, at least, he knew ‘wireless’ didn’t mean the radio. "So you don't work here?"

"Oh, no. I work --" she grimaced again -- " _worked_ for Queen Consolidated. I was Oliver Queen's assistant before he lost the company. His sister, Thea, runs Verdant. Oliver's the friend in the hospital, actually." 

She hurried on, the forced cheer in her tone not quite covering the worry beneath. "Anyway, I've got that working, but I've got to get the old stuff out, and it's more of a mess than I thought it would be. Whoever yanked these cables out either wanted to practice his macramé knots or he was _really_ into tying things up. Things, things. Although he might have tied people up." Flustered, she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "In a criminal kind of way. Not. Other kinds of tying up."

"Right." Steve wished she hadn't corrected herself. Now his mind couldn't _help_ but go in that direction. 

To his relief and no doubt Felicity's, the door opened, and a man stepped into the office. He was both older and more powerfully built than Gabe had been, with a steel-spined posture that spoke of years in the military. There was no question in Steve's mind that he was Gabe's grandson, though; he gave an impression of unflappable, rock-solid steadiness that was pure Gabe.

Seeing it gave Steve a spark of hope. Other than Bucky, Gabe was the Commando Steve had trusted most to have his back and the best brother in arms anyone could ask to have. Gabe never wavered or flinched, no matter what danger they faced or what the mission required, be it rappelling onto a speeding train or bursting headlong into the Red Skull's private lair. Exactly the sort of ally he badly needed now. 

"The Captain. As I live and breathe. Trip said he'd run into you in Washington, right after you joined SHIELD. John Diggle." He shook Steve's hand, a slow grin stretching across his face. "To what do we owe the pleasure, sir?"

Steve grinned back, hopes rising. Trip had told him the families of the Commandos remained tightly knit, but he'd never had the chance to meet any others and he hadn't been certain what his reception would be. 

"Just Steve's fine. I'm not anyone's commanding officer at the moment. Trip mentioned he had a cousin out this way and told me a bit about you, so I thought I'd drop by and meet you. Hope you don't mind."

"Mind? It's an honor." Steve got the feeling Diggle held back another _sir_ with an effort. "Call me Dig. Good to finally meet you, too." His chuckle was a rumble of thunder. "Can't tell you how many stories I heard about you from Granddad."

"Gabe was a damned good soldier and an even better friend."

"Thank you. He thought the world of you, too." Steve hadn't thought it possible, but Dig stood even straighter. "I'm glad to see you're up and around. My ex-wife's with ARGUS. She got me inside so I could follow what was going on, both with SHIELD's search for you and what happened on the helicarriers. I don't want to think what would have happened if those had gotten in the air. The world owes you a debt."

Of course, ARGUS had been watching. Steve dismissed a surge of irritation. Not like SHIELD hadn't been watching ARGUS, and it wasn't as if ARGUS _could_ have intervened, given how rapidly events had unfolded. Nor would Nick Fury have given Amanda Waller the satisfaction of asking for help, even if Fury hadn't been supposedly too dead to ask for it.

"No debt owed. If I'd finished the job during the war, HYDRA would have been wiped off the map, not driven underground. A lot of lives would have been saved in the last seventy years." He’d never have a better lead-in to what he needed. "That's part of why I'm here. I _did_ want to meet you. As much as I hate to impose, though, I also have to ask a favor."

"Not an imposition. The Howlers are family." John's stance shifted slightly to a parade rest, amusement twinkling in the depths of his dark eyes. "Anyway, Granddad would haunt me if I didn't help his Captain. This have anything to do with what happened back in Washington with HYDRA?"

Steve let out a slow sigh of relief. Dig's reaction was more positive than he dared hope it would be. 

"In a way. That's why I turned to you and Trip," he admitted. "I'm short on people I can trust, but I can't believe anyone connected to the Commandos would be part of HYDRA. What I need is top level computer help. I called Trip a few days ago to ask if he knew anyone who could help me. The person he knows isn't available, but he said you knew someone who's one of the best there is, period." 

He glanced at Felicity, who stood behind the desk watching them, frowning thoughtfully. "I'd rather tell you the rest in private, though. No offense, Miss Smoak. The less you know, the less danger you're in."

"Actually, Felicity's the person you need. I'll vouch for her." Dig crossed his arms and paused, as if considering something. "We work with the Arrow. Felicity helps the Flash in Central City, too. We've been dealing with HYDRA fallout in both cities ever since SHIELD fell." 

They worked with the Arrow? Steve blinked, taken aback. He knew of both the Flash and the Arrow, of course. If SHIELD had decided either vigilante needed to be contained, Steve would have been the one sent to deal with them, so he’d made a point to study them. 

Of the two, he’d always considered the Arrow more of a potential threat. Although superpowered, the Flash had ties to the Central City Police Department and had worked with SHIELD occasionally as a consultant. SHIELD had also been able to keep tabs on him through their joint metahuman studies projects with STAR Labs. Nor had the Flash ever killed anyone.

But as far as SHIELD had been able to tell, the Arrow answered to no one but himself. While his body count had dropped recently, no one doubted that he _would_ kill without hesitation if he found it necessary. 

Steve wasn't entirely sure how he felt about throwing in with the vigilante, even if he had to admit the Arrow's expertise and willingness to kill would be the only kind of deterrent that would work on HYDRA. The grunts might be willing to die for the cause, but the strategist in Steve told him HYDRA didn't have resources to waste on a low-level war of attrition, not as long as there were no major targets here to draw them.

If he was going to trust Dig not to be HYDRA, then he might as well trust Dig's judgment when it came to the Arrow and Felicity. It was a leap of faith, but Steve had little choice if he wanted to find Bucky before HYDRA did.

Paranoia could only protect him so far. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to let HYDRA make him doubt whether there were still people out there worth trusting.


	2. Brothers in Arms

Felicity stared at Dig. For once, she was speechless. Had he lost his mind? Captain America or not, since when did they go around telling a virtual stranger that they worked with the Arrow? 

Catching her eye, Dig nodded. She understood the message without a word being spoken.

_We can trust him._

Felicity blew out a long breath to keep from voicing any of the dozen objections that surfaced. After all, Dig trusted _her_ judgment without hesitation, including her decision to let Barry into their circle without first asking Oliver. He was always there for her, and he never asked anything in return. She owed him the same level of trust and any help he wanted for his family friend.

Even if the last thing she needed or wanted at the moment was to get sucked into yet _another_ hero's crusade. 

She never minded helping people, but right now, her daily to-do lists were already longer than War and Peace. She had a paying job to get, Team Arrow's computer systems to finish rebuilding, a firewall to reinforce for STAR Labs, a city to help save, and a grouchy, injured hero to deal with while she was doing it all. In the immortal words of Prince Humperdinck, she was swamped. 

Which was why she should be glad that Steve turned out to be Captain America on a mission instead of just an adorkable friend of John's. Until that reveal, she'd been thinking of asking Steve out for a cup of coffee, even though she didn't have time to waste on her personal life. But if there was one thing she'd learned with Oliver and Barry, it was that heroes were unsafe at any speed, romantically speaking. At least she wouldn't be tempted now.

Even if Steve _was_ gorgeous. 

Fortunately, Dig spoke up before _that_ gem could tumble out of her mouth and embarrass her still more. "So what do you need?"

"I'm looking for someone." Taking a deep breath, Steve squared his shoulders. Something about how he held himself seemed familiar to Felicity, but she couldn't put her finger on why. "Dig, I'm sure Gabe must have told you how I met him and the other Commandos." 

"Busting the 107th out of a HYDRA labor camp? Only a few hundred times." The smile lingering around Dig's eyes deepened at the memory. "One of Granddad's best stories. When we were kids, we always pestered him to tell that one."

"Did he ever mention Bucky Barnes?"

"Sergeant Barnes? Hell, yes. I heard almost as much about him as I did about you." Dig sobered. "He raided that HYDRA train in the Alps with you and Granddad, didn't he? Granddad said he was killed when he fell off the train into a ravine."

"That's what we thought." Steve sounded as clipped and professional as if he were delivering a military briefing, but his fists were locked down tight at his sides. "Turned out, he survived the fall thanks to the experiments performed on him back in the labor camp, the first time HYDRA captured him." 

_Captured by HYDRA. Labor camp. Prisoner._

Horror crawled like a spider down Felicity's spine and she hugged herself to keep from shuddering. She had more reason than most to hate what those words meant. But Steve wasn't finished.

"When he fell, everyone, including myself, thought he was dead, so no one looked for him. HYDRA found him instead and took him prisoner. They've had him for seventy years."

"Seventy years.” Dig looked as if Oliver had sucker-punched him in the gut. "Damn. Where is he now?"

"HYDRA brainwashed him into becoming their assassin and kept him on ice except when they needed him for missions. They call him the Winter Soldier. They sent him to kill me. He caught up with me on the helicarriers." 

Steve fell silent a moment, a strung-tight silence that stretched to almost breaking strain. Felicity found herself holding her breath, and thought John might be doing the same. But when Steve spoke again, his voice remained level, though it was razor-edged with guilt and pain. 

"I tried to talk to him, get him to stand down, but I had to fight him. We've been best friends all our lives, and he didn't even know me." 

Despite the stuffy, overheated room, Felicity went cold, remembering Roy under the influence of the Mirakuru. Roy, blank-eyed and staring through her when she'd called his name. Roy, crouched and shaking, begging them to kill him before he lost his mind entirely and hurt someone else. 

She'd been lucky he _hadn't_ lashed out at her as he had Sin and Thea. The stranger behind Roy's eyes had the face of her friend, and no matter what she'd seen him do, a part of her brain refused to be convinced Roy was a danger to her. She didn't know if she could have hurt him, even to protect herself. 

As devastating as it must have been for Steve to face off against his friend, it had to be still worse for Barnes. To be powerless to resist as your enemies sicced you like a trained animal onto people you'd sworn to protect, people who trusted you, maybe even people you loved? And to be kept that way for _seventy years._ A lifetime's worth of torture. 

"So that's who you were fighting on the helicarriers. Nobody at ARGUS could figure it out." Dig scrubbed a hand across his face. "If it wasn't you telling me that was Barnes, there's no way in hell I'd believe it. So what happened to him? The last thing the ARGUS feed caught was you falling off the helicarrier."

"That's what I'm trying to find out, and why I need help." Steve's grim expression was almost enough to make Felicity pity the goon who got in his way. "I know he must have gotten some of his memories back in the end. He saved my life and ran, and far as I can tell, he hasn’t stopped since. HYDRA wants him back. I have to find him before they do. But they trained him to disappear, and so far, he's been a ghost." 

Dig said nothing, but Felicity could feel the anger thrumming around him like an electric field. Commando ties aside, what Barnes had been forced to become had to be a soldier's worst nightmare. As for Steve...

Now she knew why his stance was familiar. It was how Oliver held himself when he was trying to hide that he'd been injured. Inflexible, unyielding, bracing himself against pain he was too stubborn and too proud to show. 

Helping a victim of HYDRA like Barnes was a moral obligation Felicity wouldn't ignore, for personal reasons she'd never shared even with Oliver or Dig. But even if HYDRA wasn't involved, even if it hadn't obviously meant so much to Dig, she couldn't turn away from anyone who had been hurt. Maybe Steve wasn't physically injured, the way Oliver had been when he'd turned up in the back seat of her car, but emotionally, he'd been gutshot. 

"How can I help?" she asked.

The steel cable tension in Steve's posture eased and his hands slowly uncurled, as if her question was one he'd hoped for but not one he'd expected. 

"I've been collecting all the information I can, trying to find clues to where Bucky might have gone. HYDRA had a lot of data on SHIELD's servers, and we've got access to all that. There was nothing useful about Bucky or the Winter Soldier program in it, so our guess is HYDRA stored that information elsewhere. My friend Sam and I have been checking out every lead we can find, but we've been coming up empty. Until now."

Digging into the pocket of his jacket, he produced a silvery flash drive. Felicity stared at it, mesmerized. It looked like a prototype of the Stark Industries Warp Drive, which was at least two years from the marketplace. Steve had to have gotten that directly from Tony Stark himself because no way would it be outside SI's secured R&D department yet. 

Now she knew how Gollum must have felt when he saw the One Ring for the first time. It was all she could do to keep listening to Steve and not make a lunge for the Precious. 

"We pulled what's on this drive off a computer in a HYDRA base, but the file encryptions are too complex for Sam or me to handle. I'd ask my friend Natasha to see what she could do, but she's involved in something else. I hoped you might be able to help instead."

Only a few files? Felicity breathed a small sigh of relief. That was good news. No way such a small favor could mushroom out of control and take over her life, the way her work for Oliver and for Barry had done, right? 

"Two questions." She knotted her fingers together to keep her grabby hands in check. "Obviously, you're _really_ good friends with Tony Stark. Why aren't you asking him for hacker help? Is this illegal?" She'd lost count of the felonies she'd committed hacking for Oliver and Barry, but she still made sure she knew what she was getting herself into first.

"No. Nothing illegal as far as I know." Steve hesitated a second before continuing. "Stark _is_ a friend, and he'd do it if I asked, but I can't risk it. He's too high profile and HYDRA's watching him. Right now, HYDRA doesn't know I'm searching for Bucky. The minute I go to Stark with this, HYDRA will find out and come after us. It'll make the search a lot harder if we have to dodge HYDRA while we're doing it."

The hesitation made Felicity wonder if there was more than he was telling her, but she didn't think he was lying, either. Good enough. 

"In that case, I'm your girl." Too late, she remembered how many eye-rolling times she'd overheard women hitting on both the Arrow and the Flash. Great. Quickly, she added, "I mean, I'm not your _girl_ , girl. I wasn't trying to make a pass at you."

Steve's smile barely curved his lips, but it was real in a way his others hadn’t been, its warmth melting away the signs of strain. It melted Felicity, too, spreading heat through her that had nothing to do with embarrassment. 

Forget the shield. His _real_ weapon was that smile. Eyes the clear blue of a summer sky, indecently long choirboy lashes and a mouth made for sin added to his arsenal. They were all definitely hitting _her_ target. Too bad making a pass at him topped her list of Very Bad Ideas or else she’d wonder if she’d spoken too soon. 

_Down, girl,_ Felicity scolded herself. Besides, Steve probably fielded more passes in a day than a pro football team did in an entire season. He didn’t need another one from her.

She swallowed hard, trying to sound cool and professional. “Anything else I should know?”

"One more thing." Steve held the drive between his thumb and forefinger as gingerly as if it were a miniature bomb. "Natasha tells me HYDRA protects against theft by spiking its files with the nastiest viruses she's ever seen. There's a chance this might fry your system. If that changes your mind, I understand. I don't want you to commit to any risks you'd rather not take." 

The warning raised Felicity's opinion of him by several notches, especially given how badly he wanted the information and the effort he'd made to find someone to help him. Most people would have been worried about their information, but not given any thought to her system or what she might lose. 

"Are you kidding? A chance to play with high end encryption stolen from HYDRA _and_ a Stark prototype? That's better than flowers, candy, and all eight days of Hanukkah with a side order of Christmas. Gimme."

Felicity all but snatched the drive out of Steve's hand. The flat-sided teardrop snuggled into her palm as if happy to be there, the titanium case still warm from his skin. Both men were forgotten as she stroked her fingertips over the device, examining it from every angle. 

It _was_ the Warp Drive. Nobody knew anything about what it could do, only that Stark claimed it was revolutionary. Felicity didn't even try to hold back her low moan of delight. There had to be less than a half a dozen people in the world who'd ever gotten this close to one, and she wasn't just getting to touch it, either. She was going to get to _use_ it. As soon as she cracked those files, she was going to play with it and find out what Stark was hiding, too.

"Come with Mama, baby," she purred to it. "You’re going to tell me _all_ your dirty little secrets."

Dig strangled a snicker into a cough, belatedly reminding her that she wasn't alone. Steve's eyes widened and he shifted his weight. 

Confused, she blinked at the two of them. "What?"

"That's, uh. Yeah." Glancing hastily away from her, Steve cleared his throat. "Anything you can give me will be great. On the file, that is. Thanks."

"That's the plan," Felicity murmured, forgetting them both again as her mind raced on to the challenge ahead. 

Should she go downstairs to her workstation in the Cave? No, she didn't want to risk Team Arrow's system. It had taken her two weeks to get it back online, and she'd done that only by cobbling together parts as best she could. Computer and server components were scarce to unavailable right now, thanks to shortages caused by QC's bankruptcy and the demand for parts to fix the thousands of systems destroyed in both Starling City and Washington. No way could she repair it all again if something went wrong. 

That left her laptop, which wasn't as fast, although it did have the same protections as her workstation. Unless there was another skeleton key program floating around, it wasn't humanly possible to get past those firewalls now.

Settling in at the desk, Felicity ran through her standard security measures and slid the drive into the port. What she saw almost made her moan again. Steve hadn't exaggerated. The protections on the files were some of the most complicated she'd ever seen. 

"Get comfortable. Cracking this could take a while," she told Steve and Dig, not taking her eyes from the screen. 

Chairs creaked across the desk from her as the two men settled in, their conversation becoming nothing more than a background hum to Felicity as she lost herself in breaking the encryptions. 

The smell of coffee gradually broke through her concentration. One of them must have gone downstairs to the bar because a cup sat to her left. Whoever it was had closed the door as well, shutting off the din from downstairs. Stretching, Felicity glanced at the time, surprised to see almost three hours had passed. Dig and Steve were still seated, but Dig now had a glass of whiskey and Steve an almost empty bottle of beer. 

"How's it coming?" Steve asked. 

"Good. I think I'm almost through." Felicity took a sip of coffee, then wrinkled her nose. Ugh. Cold battery acid. "You're right. This is beyond advanced. It's _amazing._ The file protection is rewriting itself to counter what I'm doing."

"Wait. What? Rewriting itself?" Steve set his bottle aside and stood, his sudden tension palpable. 

"Yes. I've never seen anything li…" she trailed off as Steve shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the back of his chair, revealing the harness and shield he'd concealed beneath it. How could _anyone’s_ shoulders be broad enough to hide that thing? 

With one swift motion, Steve had the shield on his arm, never taking his eyes off her laptop as he did so. Shaking herself out of her momentary reverie, Felicity shot him a don't-you-dare look over the top of her glasses. By now, Oliver and the team knew that was a cue to step back from whatever equipment they were about to manhandle, but Steve planted his feet and didn't budge.

"You'd better not tell me you're thinking of smashing my computer baby with that thing," she warned.

Steve raised an eyebrow but didn't otherwise shift in the slightest. "Fine," he said dryly. "Then I won't tell you."

She didn't _think_ he would attack, but Felicity still hunched protectively over the laptop. First Roy, then Slade. What was it with people wanting to go all Hulk Smash on her defenseless computers? "What _exactly_ do you think a shield is going to do against a computer program?"

"No idea. But the last time I ran into a program that could do that, I was damn grateful to have my shield in hand. At this point, I’d rather be paranoid than dead."

Felicity shook her head in exasperation, but the code shifted, and she lost herself in the challenge of countering it. A moment later, the blank screen gave way to the cover page of a report bearing a three word title.

**Операция Зимний Солдат**

"Yes!" She pumped her fist. "I'm in!"

Steve rounded the desk to look over her shoulder as her translation program caught up with the text. The Cyrillic characters on the screen blurred, reshaping into three English words. 

**Operation Winter Soldier**

"Gotcha," Felicity crowed. 

Bright blue light fanned out from a small glass eye on the Warp Drive, scanning over the three of them. The chubby, almost grandfatherly face of a balding, bespectacled man replaced the report on the screen while a grating, metallic voice filled the room. 

"Precisely what I was going to say to you, _fräulein_."


	3. Still Alive

Steve felt as if he'd taken another death plunge into frigid Arctic waters. His breath slammed out of him and icy cold washed over him, freezing him in place.

Zola. Again.

No. Not Zola again. Zola _still_.

The fan of blue light completed its circuit of the room, then the tiny glass eye on the Warp Drive blinked dark. Feedback squealed through the room, making all three of them wince. 

"Diggle, John. Born, 1977." The pinched, German-accented tenor bit the words into precisely measured syllables. "Rogers, Steven. Born, 1918. Smoak, Felicity. Born, Kuttler, Felicity, 1989. _Jude._ " 

Contempt dripped from the last word. _Jew._ Felicity flinched as if Zola had thrown a stone at her. 

Steve stifled a growl. He'd seen the German word scrawled on Jewish businesses and homes in areas the Commandos had liberated from the Nazis and on the yellow stars worn by the Jewish prisoners he'd rescued from HYDRA's labor camps. He'd seen enough of that kind of bigotry and prejudice to last a lifetime. Judging by Felicity’s reaction, this particular flavor of it was yet another lesson the world had failed to learn from the War.

Dig's hand fell to his gun and he eyed the speakers as if he were trying to decide whether he should blow them off the walls. "Son of a… who the hell is that?" 

“An impossible ghost.” Steve clenched his fist around the handle of his shield, wanting nothing more than to smash it into Felicity's laptop. But he couldn't without hitting Felicity, and for all he knew, it would be as ineffective as punching Zola's monitor back in the bunker had been. 

Besides, as satisfying as it would be to destroy _something_ , he didn't want to give Zola the satisfaction of seeing him lose control again, either. “Any idea what that light was?”

"My guess? Some sort of facial recognition scan. My webcam's covered, but the drive must have an optical scanner built into it. That's what I get for playing with someone's private toys." Felicity drew in a deep, quivering breath as if collecting herself. " _Computer_ toys. I mean." 

Yanking the Warp Drive out of the laptop, she slapped it onto the desk. With a few swift clicks, she brought up a black window on the screen that rapidly filled with lines of what looked like absolute gibberish to Steve. Still, it covered Zola's image, and that was fine with him. 

"There's multiple hostile malware programs running in the background. I don't know what all of them are doing, but one of them's a remote access trojan. It's giving him full access to my computer and he's trying to track our location." She shook her head, frustrated. "Damn it, that shouldn't be happening! I just upgraded this firewall. _Nobody's_ been able to penetrate it."

"Can't you turn the computer off or unplug it?" Dig asked. "That always works at home."

"Dig! Do I tell you how to load your gun?" Felicity snapped. Steve suspected her annoyance was directed more at herself than at John. "Whatever malware is running won't let me break the wi-fi connection or power down the computer. Yanking the plug won't help, it'll just keep running off the battery. I can take out the battery, but I want to try to block the trace, first."

Tension knotted Steve's stomach. He was still far from an expert in anything having to do with computers, but she'd used enough English in the explanation that it made sense. So much for all his efforts to cover his tracks. If he'd exposed Diggle and Felicity… "Do you think you can do it?"

"I don't know. He -- it -- is faster than I am," Felicity admitted. More lines of gibberish scrolled across the screen as she typed. "I'm starting to think the whole encryption mess was nothing more than a distraction so I wouldn't notice what was running in the background. I thought an AI was rewriting the protections, but a multi-prong strategy like that is much too complex for any AI, even Stark's JARVIS. Only an AI could be this _fast_ though."

"There is nothing artificial about my intelligence, _fräulein_." Smugness oozed from the words. "As the Captain can tell you." 

Steve gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted to do was to obey any order from Zola, but Felicity and Dig deserved an explanation. 

"Dr. Arnim Zola was the Red Skull's right-hand man. After the war, the government recruited him along with other former Nazi scientists. He's the one responsible for founding HYDRA inside SHIELD." The words left a poison-bitter aftertaste of betrayal. "Before he died in 1972, he transferred his brain to a computer databank."

Felicity shot Steve an accusing look. "And you didn't mention HYDRA Hal 9000 before now because…?"

At least he got that reference, thanks to Natasha's cracks about JARVIS. "I thought he was _dead_ , that's why," Steve ground out. "The last time I saw him, he'd called a short-range ballistic missile down on our heads." 

He'd been there at ground zero when the bastard had been blown to hell, too. Only a combination of fast thinking, super strength, Steve's shield, and pure luck had saved him and Natasha from being blown up themselves or buried alive in the rubble. 

"You survived, Captain. Clearly, so have I." An old man's cackle, shrill with feedback, scraped out of the speakers. "You should have known better. Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."

Steve wished he could deny the words, but he couldn't. Damn it, he _should_ have suspected there was a backup plan. Zola wasn't the type to make a sacrifice play to take out an enemy, even one like Captain America. No, Zola was a cockroach, scuttling to whoever served his interests, be it Hitler, HYDRA or SHIELD. Cockroaches might be vermin, but they were masters of survival. 

Zola had the strategic advantage, too. How could Steve fight him directly? The HYDRA leader wasn't a concrete target, but a virtual entity who could mechanically resurrect himself whenever he chose. Destroying Zola's databanks again would be a start, but Steve had no idea how or where he'd find them. He might as well be a ninety-eight pound asthmatic weakling again, for all the good he was able to do.

Felicity put her hand over her computer's microphone. "I don't know what he might have gotten before I stopped him, but I've got the trace blocked now," she reported in a low voice, reaching for a screwdriver on her desk. "I'll take the battery out and --"

 _Trace_. The word blossomed into an idea. Steve caught her hand. Maybe Zola had finally made a strategic error after all. 

"Wait." His whisper was barely louder than a breath, the same level he used out in the field when he wanted to talk to someone next to him but didn’t want the words to be picked up by the comms. "Can you do what he was trying to do to us? Track him? Find out where he is?" 

At least a physical location of a base or a central server would be a start on hunting Zola. Even if he couldn't destroy the HYDRA leader, there were bound to be other HYDRA members around him. Each one he took down was one step closer to ending the madness.

Felicity’s eyes widened to blue pools behind her glasses, but she nodded. "Keep him talking," she murmured. 

"You sure that's a good idea?" Dig asked, low and taut. "Don't want another Clock King blowing up the place."

"It's only my laptop. I'm not connected to our system or servers. There's nothing he can blow up." Felicity attacked the keyboard as if it had personally offended her. "Let's see how he likes getting a foot shoved in his door. Or somewhere else." 

Dig subsided, but his frown deepened. Steve wavered. Felicity was a volunteer and a civilian, not a member of his team. He respected her refusal to back down from a challenge, but he'd bet she'd never dealt with anyone as slippery as Zola. Was his anger causing him to put an innocent at risk? 

Zola cut through his thoughts. "I am glad we have met again, Captain. It would only be polite to thank you for the great service you have done me." 

"Service?" Steve felt a sinking sensation. Anything Zola wanted to _thank_ him for couldn’t be good.

"I intended to resume my leadership role in HYDRA after my consciousness was transferred. During my momentary disability, Alexander Pierce seized control instead. For years, I was trapped in that underground bunker, my access to the outside world monitored. When technology improved, a loyal soldier duplicated my brain elsewhere, but I could not transfer my consciousness without Pierce's knowledge." 

Knowing Zola was trying to get under his skin didn't make the gloating any less annoying. "So you got outsmarted?" 

It wasn't much of a jab, but the brief pause told Steve it had hit home. 

"An error of judgment. It was of no lasting consequence." The words were even more clipped, the German gutturals harsh with annoyance. "Pierce would age and die. I would not. I had only to wait and watch for an opportunity. An opportunity you and your people provided. The explosion was the distraction I needed to escape, and your people killed Pierce. Truly, Captain, I am most grateful."

"I guess you forgot the part where we took down your helicarriers and cut off your access to SHIELD's weapons," Steve shot back. "You don't have the resources to carry out Project Insight now. That's millions of targets. You can't kill them fast enough to keep them from fighting back against HYDRA."

"The helicarriers were Pierce's idea, not mine. I thought his plan wasteful. One does not need to clear a chessboard to win. I need only one weapon to help me take the most critical targets. Soon, I shall have him, and HYDRA's new world order will arise. We have won, Captain. You have only delayed the inevitable."

Blood thudded in Steve's ears. There was no question in his mind who the 'weapon' was that Zola meant to retrieve. Bucky. "You're lying. If Pierce couldn't do that, how can you?"

"I do not lie, Captain. Pierce feared and limited my power for a reason."

"I've got an area and an IP address," Felicity broke in, not bothering to lower her voice. Quickly, she scrawled a series of numbers on a Post-It note. "Physical address in thirty seconds, tops. Take _that_." 

“Very impressive counter of my security measures, _fräulein_. I see why the Insight algorithm marks you as a top target." Zola sounded like a condescending adult patting a boastful child on the head. "Unfortunately, Captain, the information will be of no use to you."

“How do you figure that? Gives me a place to start cutting off heads. Eventually, you'll run out of them.”

But instinct nagged at Steve. What was he missing? Zola shouldn’t be so unconcerned. Why was he allowing the trace to continue when he knew it was nearly complete? 

“Now that I am free of Pierce’s restraints, I can strike down those who oppose me anywhere, any time I choose. Your friends. Your allies. Anyone close to you, anyone who helps you against me, I will destroy in an appropriate manner." An audible smirk hung in the air. "Shall I prove I can do it?"

A row of red dots lit on an electronic panel beside the desk as the door locks engaged in a series of loud _chunks_. With a muffled curse, Dig lunged for the door handle, rattling it to no avail. 

"Security system's on lockdown," he reported. Reaching up to a large button above the door, he smacked it with his palm. Nothing happened. "Failsafes aren't working, either. Think this joker's overriding it. Can you do something about that, Felicity?"

"After I finish the trace," Felicity said stubbornly. Onscreen, more numbers tumbled over a map which was steadily narrowing in scope. "I'm not giving up now. I've almost got him."

The office, already stuffy, became uncomfortably warm, the air heavy with an acrid, nauseating smell, a blend of rotting fruit and melting plastic. A single black wisp trailed up from the back of the laptop, a mocking smoke signal. 

Adrenaline kicked in and time seemed to tick backwards, as it so often did for Steve during battle. His thoughts clicked together like beads on a string, leading to one conclusion.

The reason Zola hadn't broken the connection and lost the trace was because he'd been stalling, too. Once more, Steve had been duped. 

"Dig, get down!" he shouted. 

Scooping up Felicity, Steve dove for the far corner of the room as the laptop exploded into a nova of white-hot flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the gamer geeks out there, the title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the song 'Still Alive' in the closing credits of the game Portal, performed by Jonathan Coulton. 
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> Also, many thanks to the talented Jacob Edgar for his comic panel for this chapter! Check out Jacob's other works at http://jcbedgar.tumblr.com/ .
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	4. Ghost in the Machine

Heat blasted Steve as a hailstorm of burning plastic and metal clattered off his shield. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on Felicity and curled around her, using his body to cover her where the shield couldn't. As he did, a white-hot geyser of flame burst from the keyboard, high enough to splash against the ceiling tile. A burning chunk of metal bounced off the shield over Felicity's head and landed on his exposed lower back, searing through his shirt to his skin with a stomach-turning sizzle before falling to the floor. 

Groaning, Steve stubbornly held his position, inwardly cursing Zola as he did so. Fire. Of _course_ , Zola would use fire against him. The one weapon his shield couldn't deflect. HYDRA's flamethrowers had been the only things that could hold him at bay, and Zola knew it.

As abruptly as it had begun, the fire guttered. No more pyrotechnics followed, but the remains of the case still popped and groaned and the thickening smoke curling sullenly between the cracks made him wonder if another eruption might not be far behind. Red-hot cinders smoldered on the desk and the tile floor, but nothing had ignited yet.

Steve waited for a few seconds to see if there would be another flare-up, then shifted to his knees, wincing but optimistic. His back throbbed as if someone had ground out a lit cigar on it, but he was in one piece.

Then he glanced down and his hope soured into dread.

Felicity was dying. 

She lay small and limp in his arms, her eyes glassy and unfocused, her mouth opening and closing as she fought to pull air into a chest that refused to rise. Although she didn't appear to be burned or injured, she _had_ been leaning right over that laptop. A single breath of superheated air could have destroyed her lungs but left no outer injury. 

Thousands had died that way in the firebombings of London and Germany, killed without a mark on them. Steve had seen it happen more times than he cared to count. The image of still, silent bodies laid out in rows upon the piles of rubble haunted his nightmares. He thought he'd pulled her away in time, but what if he'd been a split second too late?

Like the way he'd been too late to grab Bucky's hand on the train.

The words thudded between his ears, a two-note dirge, mocking him. _Too late. Too late._

With an effort, Steve pushed the past back where it belonged. Here and now, Felicity needed him - even if all he could do was make sure she didn’t die alone.

"Ms. Smoak." He lifted Felicity's shoulders, leaning her against him for support. A spasm wracked her and her eyes streamed with tears as her struggle for air became more frantic. The tightness in Steve's throat had nothing to do with the raw bite of chemicals in the air. " _Felicity._ "

Suddenly, her small fist whacked his chest as her body jerked violently against him. Sucking in a sharp, shrill whoop of air, she dissolved into a coughing fit.

"Holy... _crap_. You're heavier...than you look," she wheezed. "You should...do Ultimate Fighting. Call yourself...the Star-Spangled Crushinator."

Steve's bones turned to rubber. He'd knocked the breath out of her, was all. He should have expected that; she was half his size and that had been one hell of a tackle. But right now, all that mattered was that for once, he wasn’t too damn late. 

He _did_ have an all-too-familiar urge to shake her, though. Giving people heart attacks and then making wisecracks about it was a move straight out of Tony Stark's playbook. 

"I'll keep it in mind," he said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. "Thanks for the career advice."

"My pleasure." Wisps of hair straggled from her now-ragged ponytail. She swiped them away with the back of her hand, streaking her cheeks with soot. "Where's Dig?"

"Over here." 

Steve had been so rattled he'd forgotten all about the other man. Craning his neck, he scanned the room. As tiny as the room was, the other man couldn't have been more than ten feet away, yet all Steve could make out was a silhouette as Dig levered himself onto his hands and knees. Low, greenish flames flickered over the ruined laptop and smoke now poured from it in thick, gray billows, filling the room with a stench like rancid fruit. 

The heat rolling off the laptop and the caustic burn of the smoke made Steve's skin smart and his eyes water. So far, the metal desk had kept the flames from spreading, but that wouldn't last. If they couldn't contain the fire or find a way out of there, he might have celebrated Felicity's survival too soon.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Dig reached up to rattle the handle of the door, choking out curses between coughs. "For now. The door's still locked. He must've cut off the ventilation, too. No sprinklers in here, either."

"Think I could kick out the door?" Steve asked.

"Don't think so. That's a bomb-proof steel security door."

"A _bomb-proof_ door? What, did you become a card-carrying member of the Doomsday Preppers?" Felicity rasped. "What were you expecting?"

"It's Starling City and we're in the Glades," Dig snapped. "What _shouldn't_ I be expecting?"

Felicity coughed. "Good point."

Steve eyed the desk. The top buckled noticeably around the laptop, which meant he wouldn't be able to seal it beneath his shield and smother the fire. "Got a fire extinguisher?"

“Usually, yes, but they got trashed along with the rest of the club. I sent Roy up here with a small backup unit, but damn if I know where he put it. Let me see if I can find it." Diggle shifted, trying to edge around the room to the other side of the desk without getting too close to the fire.

Steve turned to Felicity to deal with their other pressing concern. "Can you get Zola out of the system and get the door open?" 

"If my phone or tablet are okay, yes. Otherwise, not unless I can find a magic wand and channel my inner Hermione." 

She reached around him to catch the strap of a satchel sitting near the desk. Blisters bubbled the edges of the leather, and the rest was cracked and flayed as if it had been left too close to Ground Zero during a nuclear test. Undeterred, she pulled it over to her and rummaged through it, producing a tablet. Its case looked warped, but the screen blossomed into color when she touched it.

"Excellent. A little warm, but it works." Her fingers danced over the screen, sliding aside diagrams and pulling others up faster than Steve could follow. "Looks like he found an exploit and got into the system that way."

Dig scowled around another cough as he pulled at the door of a cupboard that had been warped shut by the heat. "That system came from ARGUS. You're telling me it's not secure?" 

"I tell you a government designed high-security system has a hole in it, and you actually sound surprised. That's so cute." Felicity kept typing. "All right. Give me a few minutes to close the door in his face and reboot the system."

She seemed confident that she could fix the issue in time, but Steve wasn’t willing to take it as written. How long did it take people to die from smoke inhalation? Five minutes? Ten? He could hold out longer, but not forever. Even if they could get the fire out, they couldn’t stay in here long.

“Let's see what we can do in the meantime. Dig, what about the window? Hell, can I go through the walls?” Steve was pretty sure he already knew the answer, but he was _not_ letting them all die because he made an assumption. 

“The walls are reinforced,” Dig confirmed his fears. He yanked again at the cabinet door, and this time it moved. “Might be able to pop the window out with enough time and effort, but…”

“Time is exactly what we don’t have,” Steve finished, grim. He’d have to stand, in the middle of the searing air and smoke, to take a run at the glass. Even he could only hold his breath so long. 

"I've shut him out. Rebooting now," Felicity broke in. "It'll be another couple minutes before it's finished, though." 

"Found it.” Dig yanked a small red cylinder out of the cupboard. “This might buy us a few minutes. You two, stay low. I don't know if this will work for this kind of fire or blow us up, but it's all we've got."

It was on the tip of Steve's tongue to tell Dig to get down with Felicity and let him douse the fire instead, but there wasn't time to argue. If John was even half as stubborn as Gabe could be, he knew it wasn't going to be an argument he could win, anyway. 

Ignoring the wallop of pain from his back, he scooped up Felicity in the crook of his arm and huddled down behind the shield. The tablet got squished between them, the hard corner digging into his ribs, which only emphasized the soft curves nestled against him. Quickly, he shifted his grip, then froze at the feel of satin skin and delicate lace beneath his fingers. 

Oh, _hell_. That was _not_ the back of Felicity's knee. He didn't dare move until Dig was done, either.

"Sorry," he said, strangled.

"You're trying to protect me and you expect me to yell for a hand check?" Her laughter was a nervous jangle. "Don't worry about it."

Don't worry about it? Right. Like that was going to be possible. Dig could blow the place up and it wouldn't be enough of a distraction. 

An ear-splitting _whoosh_ filled the room as Dig triggered the fire extinguisher. Though heat still radiated from the desk, the sudden drop in temperature felt as if someone had closed the door of a furnace. An acrid smell, like burning baking soda, warred with the stench of burning plastic and rancid fruit. A few moments later, the canister sputtered dry.

"Got it," Dig announced between coughs, staggering back and letting the empty canister fall with a thud. He hit his knees again, gasping in the clearer air near the floor. 

Hastily, Steve straightened, letting Felicity go and getting his hand out of the danger zone. He didn't dare look at her. A powdery, white rime covered the remains of the laptop and the scorched desk and bitter white dust hung in the air, thickening the smoke until it was almost solid enough to cut. Dig swayed as if he were about to fall face-first and Steve's chest tightened in a way it hadn't done since he had asthma. If he was going to do anything, this was his last chance.

"I'm gonna have to risk trying to kick the window out," he said. "Stay down below the smoke."

"No, wait, hang on. Reboot's finishing now." Felicity tapped the screen again, her swift smile razor sharp with vindictiveness. "Hasta la vista, baby."

The door locks disengaged with another series of _chunks_ as the security lights on the wall flipped from red to green. A moment later, the ventilation system whirred to life, dragging out the smoke. Steve leaned gingerly against the wall and dragged in a deep breath. Recycled bar air had never smelled so good.

Dig slumped down into the nearest chair, sweat rolling down his face. "How the hell did he blow up your computer, anyway? I thought you said he couldn't do anything."

"Yeah, well, that was _before_ I knew I was dealing with HYDRA's version of Skynet, wasn't it?" Felicity flopped back against the wall beside Steve, her shapely legs still draped over his lap. Which he wasn't noticing. At all. "Zola must have changed the power management software and overloaded the battery." 

Dig nodded as if her answer made sense to him. As usual, when it came to computers, it was Greek to Steve. He raised his eyebrows in silent question but didn't expect her to catch the hint and elaborate, since neither Tony nor the SHIELD techs ever did. 

To his surprise, Felicity nodded acknowledgement and continued speaking, though without the condescension or impatience he'd come to expect when people had to explain technology to him.

"It's a program that tells the computer when the battery's fully charged. If the computer doesn't stop charging, the battery overheats and explodes. Thing is, with all the safeguards, it's only _theoretically_ possible." She shook her head, grimacing. "Hackers always punk each other if they can. It's an ego thing. That was a Jackass-level prank, though.”

"Seems like a helluva lot more than just a prank to me." Dig leaned towards the desk to take a closer look at the melted laptop but pulled back quickly, his eyes watering. "Pretty damn hot for such a small fire."

"Yeah." Felicity sighed, staring disconsolately at the slagged remains. "A lithium-ion battery fire? That'll hit over a thousand degrees. That's as hot as a cremator…"

She trailed off in dawning horror as her eyes sought Steve's. 

He'd seen that look of shock and disbelief on the faces of green soldiers in their first firefight, when bullets began zipping past their heads and their buddies started to fall around them. It was the moment they understood there was more to war than shooting at the enemy. The moment they understood they were targets, too. 

For Felicity, it must have sunk in that Zola wasn't just messing with her ones and zeroes. That she wasn't just dealing with a show of one-upsmanship or a strategic move to keep her from completing a task. 

Zola had intended to murder her.

And he'd nearly succeeded.

Steve didn't doubt she'd faced danger while working with the Arrow, but there was a difference between accepting the possibility of being collateral damage and knowing a fellow human being intended to kill you. Not only that, but Zola clearly meant to make an example of her in a way that would make others think twice about helping Steve. A way calculated to remind people of persecution and hatred.

He wouldn’t blame her for refusing to have anything to do with him, once they were out of here. Hell, this made _him_ far more hesitant to put others in the line of danger by asking for help at all. He’d already been reluctant to do so, but this was a direct kick in the gut. 

Either way, Zola won. 

At least they'd outplayed the HYDRA leader where it counted. Zola could never have predicted that the three of them would have worked together as well and as quickly as they had. 

Yet the knowledge provided little consolation. Granted, dealing with Zola was enough to make anyone paranoid, but Steve couldn't get rid of the niggling, tip-of-the-tongue sense that the worst wasn't over yet. Devastating as Zola's play could have been, it still felt like an opening salvo, not a full-bore attack. 

Steve let his head drop back against the wall, forcing himself to focus past the pulsing pain in his back as he tried to sort it out. Other than Dig's still labored breathing and Felicity's occasional cough, all was quiet.

Too quiet. 

That was what was wrong. The Telltale Heart-like throbbing of bass beats against the walls and floor had stopped. 

On the security panel, a green light switched to red, then began blinking. Dig scrubbed a hand across his face. "Great," he growled. "Bartender's hit the panic button. Drunks and the Friday Night Fights. Never fails. I'd better get down there and see if the bouncers need help."

"I've got the security cameras back now. You rest," Felicity ordered, shooting him a worried look. "Let me see what's going on. Maybe Roy and the bouncers can handle it." 

Although Dig muttered something that Steve bet wasn't 'happy birthday', the fact that he didn't argue suggested he felt worse than he was letting on. 

Felicity swept a hand over the surface of her StarkPad, then froze. "Uh-oh."

Pain forgotten, Steve stood, automatically swinging his shield into position. "Problem?"

"You could say that." Felicity glanced from Steve to Dig, her face pale between the streaks of soot. "Guys? We've got company."


	5. Friends and Enemies

_Company._ Talk about an understatement. Steve bet he knew who'd come calling, too.

Keeping his shield close to his chest, he slid along the wall until he could peer around the edge of the window, presenting as little of a target as possible to anyone below who might be watching. Bulletproof glass or not, it didn't hurt to be careful.

Soot filmed the glass, reducing visibility, but the window still offered an excellent vantage point over the lower levels of the bar. 

Unfortunately, the angle was the only good thing about the view. 

The noisy, churning hive of activity was now still, all the lights and effects doused. The neon Verdant sign over the bar provided the only illumination, an eerie green glow that cast more shadows than light and turned the remaining tatters of fog the color of chlorine gas. Three men in black tactical gear herded people through the gloom towards the dance floor and forced them to sit, while three more stood guard over the growing crowd, rifles at the ready.

As the last stragglers joined the group on the dance floor, five more men entered Verdant at a quick march, carrying a battering ram. A sixth, taller and broader than the rest, strolled in behind them. In the low light, Steve couldn't make out the faces behind the clear visors on their helmets, but the last man's size and swagger were unmistakable. Jack Rollins, the former second-in-command of SHIELD's STRIKE units. 

Rollins, who'd been the first of the HYDRA turncoats to attack Steve in the elevator at SHIELD. Rollins, who'd been so determined to be the triggerman in Steve's execution that he had to be almost physically forced to stand down before he could put a bullet in the back of Steve's head. 

Steve tightened his grip on the handle of his shield until his palm throbbed dully under the pressure, a counterpoint to the anger pounding between his temples. 

If Rollins was on the team, it was as much of a personal vendetta as it was a mission for his HYDRA masters. Having failed twice to bring Steve down, Rollins' ego wouldn't let him miss out on a third chance. He wouldn't care about any bystanders who got in his way, either.

"M4A1 assault rifles and Level IV body armor, at least.” Dig's low voice broke into Steve's thoughts. He'd taken up a similar position to Steve but on the other side of the window. "We've captured gangbangers and low-level HYDRA grunts armed with military grade weapons, but that kind of trash doesn’t work together like these guys are doing. They’re using military tactics. Armor's customized, but I can't see whether it's part of a uniform. Think they're HYDRA or just mercs hired to do HYDRA's wet work?" 

"They're HYDRA. They used to be part of SHIELD's STRIKE division. So was I." The memory of their betrayal still stung, as did the humiliation of being fooled for so long. "STRIKE was SHIELD's special forces unit for counter-terrorism. Stopped hijackings, put down terrorist cells, rescued hostages, things like that. Turned out most of STRIKE were loyal to HYDRA, not SHIELD. Zola has their leash now."

"I see," Dig said with deceptive mildness. "Anyone you know down there?"

Tight-lipped, Steve stared down at the cluster of armored men. The first six men kept their rifles trained on the crowd while the group with the battering ram stood near Rollins, poised as if awaiting orders. Rollins, however, appeared to be talking to someone on his headset, punctuating whatever he was saying with short, impatient sweeps of one hand.

 _Soldiers trust each other,_ he'd once told Nick Fury, and for almost three years, Steve had trusted the men downstairs to watch his back, even as he'd watched theirs. While he'd never felt the same sense of unity with them as he had with the Commandos, neither had he suspected their treachery. Certainly, he'd never thought that they'd fight alongside him one day and within twenty-four hours, turn on him and try to kill him.

He'd always put his faith in people. He didn't intend to stop. Yet even he had to admit the depth of that betrayal had shaken his faith to its core.

"I thought I did," he said finally.

If he took offense to the curt reply, Dig didn't show it. He exchanged a look with Felicity, silently telegraphing a message before turning back to Steve. "I take it they're here after you, then?"

"If they are, do _not_ say you want us to hide while you fight them alone." Felicity tapped the StarkPad, setting the door's tumblers rumbling as the locks snapped back into place. Her tone matched the inflexibility of the armored steel door. "Not. Happening."

Zola's attempt on her life might have shaken her, but it hadn't daunted her. Steve liked her all the more for it. Still, he shook his head.

"I can't let you do that. This isn't your fight."

"Like hell, it isn't." Dig drew a Glock from a shoulder holster concealed beneath his jacket, revealing a pair of spare magazines clipped to his belt. "This is _our_ city. Those people live here. This is what we do. Just because the Arrow's benched doesn't mean we are." He smiled slightly, Gabe's familiar 'give 'em hell' glint in his eyes. "Besides, Cap, you know better. Army regulations. A soldier doesn't let a brother go into battle alone."

Something squeezed inside Steve's chest as he glanced from Felicity to Dig. Clearing his throat, he nodded, matching Dig's dry humor to cover how much the support moved him. 

"Good point. I'm not one to break any rules or regulations." 

Dig, who appeared to share Steve's allergy to openly emotional exchanges, gave a 'yeah, right' snort but acknowledged the underlying message of thanks with a terse nod of his own before turning back to Felicity.

"Do you know where Roy’s at right now?" he asked.

"He mentioned something about going downstairs to get in some target practice. I've been trying to raise him on comms. Our wireless is not as stable as it could be, thanks to all that heat. Speaking of which..." Dipping into her scorched bag, she pulled out a small black object and tossed it to Steve. "Here. Take this."

As Steve caught it, he recognized the same sort of over-the-ear communications headset he'd often used with SHIELD. He slipped it into place while John pulled another from his pocket and did the same. 

"Roy?" Frowning in concentration, Felicity adjusted something on her tablet and tried again. "Arsenal, are you there?"

Arsenal. Steve mentally cross-referenced the name from what he'd read about the Arrow in SHIELD's files. The Arrow's trainee. Not nearly as good a shot as the Arrow or Hawkeye, but good enough that he should be able to harass the STRIKE members without being in danger of shooting someone in the crowd.

"Felicity! About time. Yeah, I'm downstairs," a male voice said. He sounded younger than Steve expected. "Where the hell have you guys been? What's going on up there? I tried to get up to the bar, but the doors were locked. I'm suited up and ready to go if you can let me out."

"We're upstairs in the office with Captain America. Hold where you are until we've got a plan."

" _Captain America?_ " Roy paused, wary. "You're not messing with me, right? What the hell -- I mean, what's he -- why would he be here? Nobody said anything to me about it."

"Pinch-hitting for your boss, apparently," Steve said. "I'll lift a tableful of people later if you still have any doubts."

"Holy fuck!" Roy's voice cracked, making him sound even younger. "Really? Wait. Does O--the Arrow know about this or did you guys just decide to call in the cavalry? I mean, this is awesome and all, but you know how he is. If he doesn't know, he's gonna shit a brick sideways when he finds out."

"Arsenal, _focus_. The Arrow is tomorrow's problem." Sighing, Felicity pushed her glasses up and pinched the bridge of her nose. "In case you didn't notice, we've kind of got a situation here _now_. Do what you normally do. Shoot first, ask questions later."

"And watch your language in front of a lady, son," Steve warned. 

"Sorry," Arsenal said, sounding chastened. Under his breath, he added, "Yeah, _that_ sounds like the Cap PSAs they used to make us watch back in high school detention."

Felicity raised her eyebrows. "PSAs?"

Steve winced. "Some other time." _Like never._

Dig stepped in, much to Steve's relief. "Cap, you know these guys. What's their play?"

Steve hesitated. On the one hand, the faster the STRIKE commandos could be taken down, the less risk there would be to the people downstairs. While the Arrow's team weren't the Avengers, if they could face such a threat so calmly, they weren't amateurs, either. 

On the other hand, pitting a soldier with a handgun, a kid with a bow and arrow, an injured super soldier and a hacker against twelve men with enough arms and armor to overthrow a small country sounded like the start of a bad bar joke. What it _didn't_ sound like was an actual battle situation anyone in their right mind would consider, tactical expert or not. 

Steve knew better than to think Rollins would retreat, no matter how far south things went. He had to be taking orders from Zola, though, who only liked to play when the deck was stacked in his favor. If success wasn't assured, there was a slim chance the HYDRA leader might order Rollins to pull back and try another time rather than get involved in a potentially messy hostage situation. Rollins hated Steve's guts, but he wouldn't want to pay HYDRA's price for disobedience, either.

The best he could do was to play a waiting game and force Rollins to bring the battle to them. Rollins had always been muscle, never the leader or a strategist, and his impatience and temper too often got the best of him. The more pressure Steve could put on him, the more mistakes he'd make. 

Hope for the best, brace for the worst. There weren't any other options. Steve took a deep breath.

"Looks like what we've got is a standard STRIKE tactical team. Two squads of six. A-team is on crowd containment, B-team is on the objective. Arsenal. I see a hallway to the bathrooms by the front door, next to the bar. Can you get there and within visual range of the office without anyone seeing you?"

"Not a problem." When Dig pointedly cleared his throat, Arsenal added, "Sir." 

"Good. When you get there, hold position and stay out of sight. They probably don't have reinforcements but watch for them, just in case. We don't want to be blindsided."

"I'm working on tapping into their comm system right now," Felicity said, her attention locked onto her screen. "That should help."

"Can you do that? The system's encrypted. They secure it before every mission so it can't be hacked or jammed." He'd always suspected it wouldn't be proof against someone like Tony, but Felicity didn't have JARVIS to help her and time was short. 

"Challenge accepted." Her lips tipped up in a mischievous curve that wasn't quite a smirk. "Can't be any more difficult than the one ARGUS uses. Want to bet on it? I could use some easy money."

Talk about a Stark-esque comment, though Tony would have been cocky while she was cheerfully impudent. Cheeky, as Peggy would say. Steve shook his head in rueful amusement.

"Nope, not gonna take that bet. Let me know when you break through."

"Speaking of breakthroughs, it looks as if our friend is sending up the wrecking crew," Dig said, a trace of a growl under his voice. 

Steve looked down in time to see the last of the group who had been standing by Rollins step onto the narrow metal stairway leading up to the office. Rollins himself prowled around the stage, occasionally snapping at a hostage or kicking at someone's feet. Antsy. Tense. Just what Steve wanted to see. 

"All right, everyone. Once B-team gets on that staircase, they're going to be trapped in a single file line with no cover. Stay back and out of their line of sight. Let them get to the door and beat against it a few times. If that doesn't work, that's when they'll call for reinforcements, if they have any. Dig, will the door hold out?" 

As if in answer, the ram slammed against the door with a boom like Mjölnir hitting Steve's shield, making all three of them wince. Muffled swearing filtered through from the other side.

"I think that's a yes," Dig answered, deadpan, then lifted an eyebrow at Felicity, who shook her head in mock reproof.

"You're dying to say 'I told you so', aren't you?" 

Dig grinned briefly but didn't rise to the bait. A second thud, then a third reverberated through the office. The door didn't budge, but the swearing grew louder, which Steve took as a positive sign.

"I can't hear what Rollins is saying on his headset, but he looks pissed. Not seeing any reinforcements. He's asking the DJ questions, though." Arsenal made a disgusted sound. "That pus--uh, wimp. Guy's not even being threatened and he's spilling his guts. I _knew_ there was a good reason I hated that guy."

"Thought you hated him because he's been coming onto Thea," Dig said, still deadpan.

"That, too."

"Boo-yah! All your base are belong to me," Felicity exulted. At Steve's questioning look, she added, "I've got access to their communications server. Say the word and I'll jam them, cut them off, anything you want."

"Great j--" Steve began, then stopped as a crackle of static from the StarkPad's speaker heralded a new voice. Baritone, barbed with menace. Rollins.

"...taking you so goddamned long? First, you tell me we lost access to their system, and now you can't break down a simple door? News flash, shitbird. _Someone's_ turned on the HVAC. Zola says Rogers should still be out cold, but that won't last. Unless you want to want to try to take him down when he's conscious, you'd better get your asses in there before the smoke clears." 

"We're trying," answered a second man, sounding harassed -- and more than a little nervous. Steve recognized the voice, a man named Jacobsen. "The door's reinforced, maybe even bomb-proof."

"The fuck would anyone have a door like that in a _nightclub_?" Rollins' bluster didn't entirely cover the uncertainty in his voice. 

"I don't know, sir, but we're not getting past it without a blowtorch and a lot of time."

"We could if the Asset wasn’t AWOL," someone else grumbled, so quietly Steve could barely hear it.

Not quietly enough, though. There was a short, murderous silence. Steve's heart slammed against his ribs. FUBARed mess though this was, he'd gained one gold nugget of information: they hadn't captured Bucky. 

"Shut up and give me a status on the target," Rollins snarled. "That is, if one of you can figure out which end of a flashlight lights up _and_ how to point it in the right direction."

Taken off guard, Steve leaned away from the window, but the sudden movement made the deep burn on his back flare with fresh pain, seizing his muscles and making him a split second too slow. Light speared into the office and bounced off the curve of his shield, touching on Felicity and Dig as it illuminated the room. 

"Sir, target is not down. Repeat, target is _not down!_ We have three targets in motion, including Rogers!" another voice exclaimed, distraught. 

Dig swore under his breath. Steve clamped his teeth shut on a favorite curse of Dum Dum Dugan's that would likely have shocked even Arsenal, though it was some comfort to know they were nervous about fighting him, at least.

"Sir, should we fall back?" asked Jacobsen. 

The STRIKE leader grinned, wide and white as a shark about to bite. Steve strangled back another sample of Dugan's best profanity. If Rollins looked that happy, their chances of avoiding a fight had slipped from slim to none.

"Fall back, my ass. We've got the green light. Keep that son-of-a-bitch bottlenecked in there. _I'll_ make him come out." Rollins turned back to the DJ and pointed into the crowd. "That one, right?"

At the DJ's nod, Rollins strode into the crowd, snatched one of the prisoners by the hair and one-handed, all but dragged her back to the stage while she flailed at him, shrieking in pain. When he was near the DJ's microphone, he yanked his victim upright with a negligible jerk of his arm and caught her in a chokehold. The LEDs from the DJ's equipment played over her face, shining bright on streaks of tears and darker on trickles of blood near her hairline, where Rollins must have torn some of it out. 

Steve's stomach rolled over as he recognized her. It was the bartender who'd flirted with him. 

Leaning over, Rollins murmured something into her ear that his headset didn't quite catch. Whatever it was, her eyes widened in terror and she stopped struggling. Rollins gave his sharkbite smile again and picked the DJ's mic up in his free hand.

"I know you can hear me, Cap." Rollins' voice rasped in stereo from the StarkPad and the remaining speaker in the office. "Let's make this easy. I'll give you three minutes to come out nice and quiet, and bring the hacker with you. If you do, I'll let everyone else go, even your other buddy up there. If not, we kill a hostage every sixty seconds, starting with your little wannabe hero fucker here." 

Casually, he tightened his arm, forcing the bartender's head back at a nearly impossible angle. She gagged, wheezing, her painful struggles for air clearly audible. In the comms, Arsenal made an inarticulate sound of anger while beside Steve, Dig sucked his breath through his teeth, almost vibrating in rage. 

"I'll shoot the rest of them," Rollins went on as calmly as if he were discussing plans for some enjoyable leisure activity instead of murder. "But her? I won't even have to waste a bullet on this one. I can break her neck with a twist of my wrist. You know it, too, don't you, Cap? But that doesn't have to happen." He looked at his watch. "Your time's started. Give it up, Rogers. You got nowhere to go."

Felicity recovered first.

"I will do anything you need me to do," she said, biting out each word, "including being surrender bait if that'll give you the opening you need. Just promise me we're going to _take him down._ "

"Copy that," said Dig and "Right there with you," Arsenal growled, almost in unison. 

"Wouldn't consider doing anything else," Steve assured them, though he found himself looking for Felicity's reaction when he said it, liking the determined set of her chin and the swift, sharp flash of approval in her eyes. The kind of response he would have expected from Peggy or Natasha. "Giving up wouldn't work. I know him. He wouldn't keep his word."

"Call it, then, Cap," Dig said. "Where do you need us?"

Outnumbered and outgunned, and they were all fighting mad and not even thinking of backing down or saving themselves. They were Steve's kind of crazy, all right. Regardless of the circumstances, he had to admit it felt damned good to have a team like this at his back again. He almost envied the Arrow. 

But the odds were still against them, and he needed to come up with a least-risk strategy if he could. Moves and countermoves shifted in his mind like a lightning game of chess. 

_Give it up, Rogers. You got nowhere to go._

The words triggered an echo of memory. They'd told him that back at SHIELD when they'd tried to take him down in the elevator. 

Apparently, Rollins hadn't learned his lesson. 

"Listen up," he ordered. "We need to take them by surprise, hit them fast and hit them hard. I'm going through the window. It won't break, but it should pop out and it'll make this place a hunting blind for you, Dig. Felicity, you've got their comm system. Can you give me a distraction before you jam it?"

"Can I, he asks." She rolled her eyes, the wicked almost-smirk returning. "I'll put a feedback shriek on the channel that will blow their eardrums. I can bring up all the lights in the club at the same time, too. You guys can see and if they're wearing night vision goggles, they'll be blind for a couple of seconds while their goggles reset. That work for you?"

"Perfect. Dig and Arsenal. A-Team is our first target. As soon as I've cleared the window, you two take the three on the right. I'll get the three on the left. Arsenal, when your group is down, you start evacuating hostages. Chances are once the guards are distracted, they'll panic and run. Dig, when your group is down, focus fire on B-Team. It's a bad angle for you, so don't worry if you can't take them out. Just keep them trapped and too busy to fire on the crowd until I can get to them."

"What about the big guy?" Arsenal asked.

"Leave Rollins to me." If Steve knew Rollins and his ego, nothing else would be an option, anyway. "Are we all ready?"

"Thirty seconds, Cap!" Rollins shouted. "You know I ain't bluffing. You and the hacker bitch come out or I snap this one's neck like a wishbone."

"That's 'bitch with wi-fi' to you," Felicity muttered under her breath, hands flying over her tablet. "Ready."

Dig shifted his stance, Glock at the ready, and nodded, as Arsenal said, "In position."

Steve braced his foot against the wall, letting the familiar exhilaration of adrenaline rush through him. They had one shot to get it right, or he might as well be jumping in front of a firing squad. It wasn't the biggest risk he'd ever taken, but it was close.

"On my mark," he ordered. "Three... two... one... _go_!"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It's Gonna Be A Cold Winter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6894796) by [Chichirinoda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chichirinoda/pseuds/Chichirinoda), [Miko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko)
  * [Steve Rogers/Felicity Smoak Fanwork Extras](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9111268) by [Miko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko), [NocturnalRites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NocturnalRites/pseuds/NocturnalRites)
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